Subtitled 'Travels with Enduring People in Vanishing
Lands', this deeply philosophical book considers that
progress has not been good for everyone and a way of life
which includes greener living, may be the solution for the
human race. Jules Pretty talks about THE EDGE OF
EXTINCTION
in terms of human cultures and local economies. How do we
retain and celebrate what has made cultures unique, while
bringing the advantages of medicine and applied science?
Our journey begins by crossing the International Date Line
to visit New Zealand, the last large land mass to be
populated apart from Antarctica and reached by navigating
Polynesians in outrigger canoes. Amid the descriptions of
Maori culture and hospitality, I was fascinated to learn
that the diaries of bird-harvesters were found to tally
with El Nino years. Where coastal wetlands have been
drained birds can no longer find eels to sustain their
chicks. So humans also influence the ecology of their
surrounding areas.
China is the author's next port of call, sporting
intensive
cultivation and global brands. Village houses have solar
water heaters. Jules Pretty tells us that he came here
thirty years ago, musing on some of the sweeping changes.
Everything in the economy of the mountains is hauled up
there by people. The Chinese come to walk on sacred
mountains, amid ancient pagodas and temples, listening to
portable music and taking photos. With the one-child
policy, a cousin takes the place of a sister or brother.
In Australia, we learn that the land's original
inhabitants
were not permitted to vote or hold money until 1967. An
astonishing trove of ancient petroglyphs, including
extinct
animals, sits uneasily by a spreading factory; the
authorities do not give the rock art any protection.
Strip
mining of iron, salt and fertiliser production and liquid
gas transportation take priority. We progress to Russia's
steppes, where Tuvan migrant herdsmen are once more
leading
a traditional life after the collective farms closed. Next
to Finland, feeling climate change, then Botswana and
California.
Reading these detailed visits, I felt impressed but also
cautious. I have read about the life of early twentieth-
century farm workers in Ireland, and there is no way I
would want anyone to have to return to that time. Living
as a nomadic herdsman or fisherman, necessarily on the
fringe of civilisation, would be cold, painful, hungry,
physically strenuous, risky and isolating. There would be
early deaths, especially for pregnant women, and high
infant mortality.
I've seen that in modern Turkey the government gives
grants
to shepherds for solar panels which are carried on
donkeys,
in order for them to power up laptops. This kind of
helpful
compromise allows people to live the way they choose, with
modern assistance and contact. Cellphones, charged by
solar
panels worn on a backpack, may carry an app to diagnose
eye
diseases such as cataract and glaucoma on the spot, so
doctors can provide targeted treatment to remote areas.
An
origami microscope made of paper with inbuilt lenses and
LED light source, can be used to diagnose diseases such as
malaria. No such solutions are offered by Jules Pretty
however; the author merely records his observations. For
this reason I suggest that THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION should
be
read along with a hard look at what useful, light
technology can do to reduce isolation and provide
healthcare.
In The Edge of Extinction, Jules Pretty explores life and
change in a dozen environments and cultures across the
world, taking us on a series of remarkable journeys
through
deserts, coasts, mountains, steppes, snowscapes, marshes,
and farms to show that there are many different ways to
live
in cooperation with nature. From these accounts of people
living close to the land and close to the edge emerge a
larger story about sustainability and the future of the
planet. Pretty addresses not only current threats to
natural
and cultural diversity but also the unsustainability of
modern lifestyles typical of industrialized countries. In
a
very real sense, Pretty discovers, what we manage to
preserve now may well save us later.
Jules Pretty's travels take him among the Maori people
along
the coasts of the Pacific, into the mountains of China,
and
across petroglyph-rich deserts of Australia. He treks with
nomads over the continent-wide steppes of Tuva in southern
Siberia, walks and boats in the wildlife-rich inland
swamps
of southern Africa, and experiences the Arctic with ice
fishermen in Finland. He explores the coasts and inland
marshes of eastern England and Northern Ireland and
accompanies Innu people across the taiga’s snowy forests
and
the lakes of the Labrador interior. Pretty concludes his
global journey immersed in the discrete cultures and
landscapes embedded within the American landscape: the
small
farms of the Amish, the swamps of the Cajuns in the deep
South, and the deserts of California.
The diverse people Pretty meets in The Edge of Extinction
display deep pride in their relationships with the land
and
are only willing to join with the modern world on their
own
terms. By the examples they set, they offer valuable
lessons
for anyone seeking to find harmony in a world cracking
under
the pressures of apparently insatiable consumption
patterns
of the affluent.
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